Kobe Bryant Invests In Athlete-Driven Website, The Players’ Tribune

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant continues to broaden his horizons, as he nears the end of his tenured NBA career. This time, Bryant has teamed up with New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter and The Players’ Tribune, an athlete-driven website founded in 2014. On Tuesday, it was announced that Bryant made a “significant investment,” through his investment firm, to expand the website’s multimedia efforts including: written pieces, photography, podcasts and The Players’ Tribune Radio.

“I just think in this day and age, players really want to be able to communicate directly, and I just think it’s important for fans and also for athletes to have different options,” Bryant voiced on Tuesday about his investment. “There’s a filtered perspective and there’s also a perspective of if it’s just coming directly from the athlete.”

Bryant’s first contribution to The Players’ Tribune, came in the form of a first-person essay, penning his thoughts a day after he surpassed Michael Jordan on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. He was since named editorial director, and is currently the only other athlete to be publicly labeled as an investor.

How does an athlete-driven medium change the way in which sports media is consumed?

“I’ll put it to you this way, if they were doing a vote of the top players in the league, I probably wouldn’t be 93, it’s a higher level of expertise,” Bryant smiled, referring to ESPN’s most recent player ranking.

Telling stories has been a growing passion of Bryant’s over the years. After the release of his documentary, “Kobe Bryant’s Muse,” where he served as an executive producer, Bryant said his hope is to use the series to document the life stories of other interesting professionals, in a similar setting.